Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have likewise made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
